The BEST episodes of Goodnight Sweetheart
Every episode of Goodnight Sweetheart ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Goodnight Sweetheart!
Gary Sparrow is an underachieving TV repairman, unhappily married to the loud and often mocking Yvonne Sparrow. However, Gary's life is changed forever upon discovering a time portal taking him back to a war-torn London, leading to an East End pub (the Royal Oak) and an attractive barmaid named Phoebe, who becomes his girlfriend. From then on, Gary leads a double life, going back and forth across time to please the two women in his life closest to his heart, but furthest apart.
#1 - Rites of Passage
Season 1 - Episode 1 - Aired 11/18/1993
Lost in the East End of London, TV repairman Gary Sparrow walks down Ducketts Passage, through a time warp into 1940. In the Royal Oak pub there, without either gasmask or identity papers, he is suspected of being a spy. His eye is drawn by the barmaid Phoebe, but she is a married woman whose husband is away in the war. In the cellar during an air raid he teaches the pub regulars some songs. He also helps Eric, Phoebe's father, who is injured during the raid. But what will he tell his wife Yvonne, when, and if, he gets home?
#2 - Fools Rush In
Season 1 - Episode 2 - Aired 11/25/1993
Ignoring Yvonne's advice, Gary goes for a promotion interview but does not wear a suit. His friend, Ron, hearing Gary's call to a radio phone-in program, is intrigued to know if he really did travel back in time. After another argument with Yvonne, Gary does buy a suit, though not quite what she had in mind. He returns to Duckett's Passage to see if he can go back to 1940, and what he found there.
#3 - Is Your Journey Really Necessary?
Season 1 - Episode 3 - Aired 12/2/1993
Gary & Yvonne argue about her preoccupation with her OU degree course and his obsession with WW2. Warning Phoebe that the bombing will start early that evening, Gary takes her to Holborn Underground station to shelter overnight. When they return to the Royal Oak next morning, he is questioned by the police. Back in their Cricklewood home, Yvonne is worried when Gary fails to return from work that evening.
#4 - The More I See You
Season 1 - Episode 4 - Aired 12/9/1993
Gary asks Ron, who is a printer, to forge him some 1940s identity papers. Although he dresses for the part, Ron finds that only Gary can go back to 1940. While walking in a cemetery, Phoebe asks Gary to take her back to the 1990s with him. Back in the 1990s, Ron is angry, and Gary drives all the way to Huddersfield, where Yvonne has gone for her OU degree course, worried that Ron has told her about Phoebe.
#5 - ...But We Think You Have to Go
Season 5 - Episode 7 - Aired 4/6/1998
Gary realises that he is only being used as a ploy to fool the Germans. As the Gestapo closes in on him, he is captured and is to be sent to Berlin for torture, unless he can escape first. Ron stands in for Gary on an errand for Yvonne: meeting a top model, and escorting her to a product launch - but they get sidetracked.
#6 - How Long Has This Been Going On?
Season 4 - Episode 6 - Aired 4/15/1997
Gary is preparing for Yvonne's return from Korea, but an unexpected arrival at the Royal Oak could cause him even more trouble.
#7 - We Don't Want to Lose You...
Season 5 - Episode 6 - Aired 3/30/1998
Yvonne continues to travel for Nature Boy Cosmetics. Gary takes Phoebe to the Cafe Royal, where his false wartime identity finally catches up on him, and he is recruited for a secret mission to the Isle of Wight. However, Yvonne also has a special mission for him. When he arrives at his destination in 1943, the Isle of Wight looks remarkably like France.
#8 - Pennies from Heaven
Season 5 - Episode 5 - Aired 3/23/1998
When Gary runs short of money, he decides he must break his own rules to get out of trouble, and starts betting on the horses. Phoebe is distraught, as her father was a gambler, and repeatedly tries to dissuade him.
#9 - Mairzy Doats
Season 5 - Episode 4 - Aired 3/16/1998
Ron takes advantage of the new ability to use the time gate, and as Gary's supposed commanding officer can do anything he wants. Since Reg has been promoted to a position in Scotland Yard, Ron takes everyone to a West End club to celebrate, but becomes a huge liability for Gary. Unfortunately, Yvonne obtains complimentary tickets to a Chelsea soccer match for the very same evening.
#10 - When Two Worlds Collide
Season 5 - Episode 3 - Aired 3/9/1998
Ron signs up with a dating agency. Yvonne makes a date with Gary, but when an unexploded bomb goes off in Ducketts Passage he has a problem. It is so serious that Ron misses his date to come to help. The two sides of Gary's life collide head on, and it appears that now others can travel between the 1940s and the 1990s.
#11 - London Pride
Season 5 - Episode 2 - Aired 3/2/1998
Gary is moving up the social ladder in both eras, though not smoothly in either. Noël Coward helps Phoebe to cope with living in the West End when she has trouble with the butcher, by showing her how to improve her accent. As Yvonne's business makes her a celebrity, she plans a new house, and is invited to the Woman of the Year awards, which is followed by a party at No 10 Downing Street. Gary and Phoebe get their revenge on the butcher.
#12 - A Room with a View
Season 5 - Episode 1 - Aired 2/23/1998
An unexpected wartime bomb hits Ducketts Passage and blows Gary and his son into to the present. Yvonne returns early from Switzerland, her holistic cosmetics business becoming increasingly successful, and Gary has to explain away the lad's existence when they bump into each other at Ron's. Meanwhile, Gary & Phoebe consider moving to Mayfair, which should be safer, and find they have a famous neighbor.
#13 - The Bells Are Ringing
Season 4 - Episode 11 - Aired 5/20/1997
Phoebe doesn't think Gary should be at the birth. Yvonne is about to launch a new health product. Gary is at a loss for what to do.
#14 - Careless Talk...
Season 4 - Episode 10 - Aired 5/13/1997
Gary is rapidly running out of money.
#15 - Heartaches
Season 4 - Episode 9 - Aired 5/6/1997
Will Gary be on time for his wedding to Phoebe?
#16 - Come Fly with Me
Season 4 - Episode 8 - Aired 4/29/1997
Can Gary cope with two stag nights?
#17 - Easy Living
Season 4 - Episode 7 - Aired 4/22/1997
Yvonne swaps careers, Phoebe plans the wedding and Reg's domestic problems threaten his job.
#18 - Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea
Season 3 - Episode 1 - Aired 12/26/1995
Gary buys a shop for his new business selling World War Two items, and Ron terrifies the protagonist when suggesting he might have influenced the Americans' decisions over Pearl Harbor. Thus to prevent putting a dint in history, back in the 1940s Gary tries convincing a senior American of the Japanese attack.
#19 - Have You Ever Seen a Dream Walking
Season 5 - Episode 8 - Aired 4/13/1998
Gary is very unsettled after his French adventure, and he feels like he's losing his mind: he can't tell whether he's awake or asleep, dreaming or experiencing reality. Then Rolf Harris appears in one of his dreams...
#20 - Love the One You're With
Season 5 - Episode 9 - Aired 4/20/1998
Yvonne is signing copies of her just published autobiography. Meanwhile, Gary finds out from the porter in the 1990s that the owner of his 1940s West End flat is going to be killed in a road accident - what is he to do? He finds a new occupier. Then, racked with guilt, he decides to cause a happier ending.
#21 - My Heart Belongs to Daddy
Season 5 - Episode 10 - Aired 4/27/1998
Phoebe wants to make a career of singing, and she wants Gary to write a new song for her. When he does, he has no idea what he's started. Ron wants Gary to help him with a personal ad. A visitor to the shop surprises Gary when he realises it's his son. Gary wants to go back and change the future for Michael for the better.
#22 - Mine's a Double
Season 6 - Episode 1 - Aired 4/11/1999
A stormy night in the forties turns Gary's world upside down. The problem is sorting it out, particularly when everyone is seeing double.
#23 - All About Yvonne
Season 6 - Episode 2 - Aired 4/18/1999
Yvonne throws Gary out of their Thameside penthouse apartment, which makes Gary edgy, which in turn makes Phoebe suspicious that there's someone else in his life. Ron has new girlfriend, Flic, who is so classy she's out of his league, and he is desperate to impress her, but Gary is more concerned about getting back with Yvonne.
#24 - California Dreamin
Season 6 - Episode 3 - Aired 4/25/1999
Gary has to think fast when both his wives decide it's time to move to California. Phoebe's tenancy of the Royal Oak is up, and she wants to start a new life away from the shortages of Britain, but Gary persuades her to open a night club, The Blue Door, instead. Yvonne wants to be near the expansion of her Nature Boy cosmetics into the US market, but Gary convinces her to stay with him in London. Reg retires from the police force, but his leaving party is not a success, though he does he another job immediately, as a security guard at Gary's Mayfair apartment block.
#25 - Grief Encounter
Season 6 - Episode 4 - Aired 5/2/1999
Phoebe loses her patience when Gary backs out of a part in Noël Coward's new film, because he doesn't want to be recognised in it in the 1990s. She gets a part as an extra, but does she have more than a Brief Encounter on her mind? Gary thinks so, and barges in on the set.